Recently, consumers have expressed significant interest in “place shifting” devices that allow viewing of television or other media content at locations other than their primary television set. Place shifting devices typically packetize media content that can be transmitted over a local or wide area network to a portable computer, mobile phone, personal digital assistant, remote television or other remote device capable of playing back the packetized media stream for the viewer. Placeshifting therefore allows consumers to view their media content from remote locations such as other rooms, hotels, offices, and/or any other locations where portable media player devices can gain access to a wireless or other communications network.
In the context of viewing media content over a network browser (e.g., a web browser), it is possible to stream media from a variety of sources within separate windows and/or browser “tabs.” In such cases, it may be difficult and confusing to remotely control the corresponding media content from a variety of media sources, as each media source will typically have its own corresponding remote control protocol and user interface. Thus, in the context of browser-based viewing of content from multiple sources, it is prohibitively difficult and non-intuitive to control multiple media devices with a single, generalized remote control interface when the user is already comfortable using the remote control devices that were provided with such systems.
It is therefore desirable to create systems and methods for remotely controlling a media stream that is transmitted over a network or other data connection. These and other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background section.